Fiona Avery?

This is an honest question, not a whiny indictment, criticism, or snide comment.

I've noticed that when it comes to comics, it seems wherever JMS goes Fiona Avery follows shortly thereafter. Between the ASM annual, her RS mini-series, and others, a great many jobs seem to be found for her. But there is yet to be anything of particular note.

I understand there's something of a mentor/mentee relationship between the two, but is there bad blood from others who feel she's riding JMS's coattails, or getting assignments a la Ron Zimmerman, as a result of favoritism rather than proven talent?

Many thanks for any cogent and interesting answers to this one.

I don't know of any rumors of 'bad blood.' But her lack of writing ability was already evident from her episodes of 'Crusade,' where she recycled the same story twice over a span of about three episodes.

Let me jump in here for a second....

Every writer tends to follow every other writer a bit as they first start off. The reason I was able to first write a Teen Titans Spotlight was that I knew the guy who was the editor of the book; ditto for my other first comics. You go to people you know, usually friends. That's the gatekeeping process.

Guys do this all the time, whether it's the British mafia of Moore/Morrison/Gaiman or others. Moore also mentored Gaiman, and brought him on to write the comics he was involved with, such as Miracleman. But nobody every mentions that, it's when the other person is a female that suddenly some people have a hard time with it.

Everybody goes through a learning curve when they enter a medium; Moore, me, Neil, Fi, the first few years are rocky. That's the nature of the craft.

Top Cow and I rely on her for the RS follow-ups because she knows my universe very well, and has learned to kind of write in my style, so there's a certain level of consistency there. She's doing the book in part because I asked her to do so, because I wanted someone there I could trust.

She's also done and doing a great deal of work that has nothing whatsoever to do with me. She wrote for Earth: Final Conflict, she created the No Honor book which she is currently adapting as a series for television for Gale Ann Hurd (which again has no connection to me), she's just finished off two novels, has published stories in magazines that have nothing to do with me...she's doing just fine on her own.

jms

(all message content (c) 2003 by synthetic worlds, ltd., permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine and don't send me story ideas)

No, they have a hard time with it when they don't enjoy the stories of the person doing the 'piggybacking.' It doesn't matter if that person is Fiona Avery or Frank Tieri or Chuck Austen or Brian Bendis or whoever. (Not that I would make such statements about any of the above, just that I've seen all of their names used in similar arguments about favoritism and everytime it's because the person posting that opinion didn't like their work.)

-Ralf Haring 'The mind must be the harder, the heart the keener, the spirit the greater, as our strength grows less.' -Byrhtwold, The Battle of Maldon

Well now hold on there Joe sweetheart, that's exactly what I was asking. It's exactly because I'm a woman reader, in a genre dominated by male readers and writers, that I was wondering whether Fiona's career was drawing any criticism.. Are there people in the professional community who get snitty about her writing a flagship book like Spider-Man without doing a few issues of a Teen Titan equivalent? That's what I was curious about.

Example: People who assassinate Jane Lindskold's character because she finished Roger Zelazny's last two books.

It's not as if I said she was a bad writer, or a tag-along, or kicked my puppy when we were both little. I'm honestly curious about any resistance Fiona is

Slightly different situation, or at least so I'm supposing. Lindskold went from interviewing Zelazny for a biography, to dating Zelazny (while, so the story is told, she was still married), to writing short stories in collections Zelazny was editing, to finishing Zelazny's unfinished novels after his death.

While none of that history necessarily impugns her qualifications as an author (I rather enjoyed _Changer_, as a matter of fact), one does not have to be unreasonable to think that Ms. Lindskold definitely got a few breaks the average beginning writer would not.

Aside from this discussion...none that I'm aware of.

jms

(all message content (c) 2003 by synthetic worlds, ltd., permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine and don't send me story ideas)

: on to write the comics he was involved with, such as Miracleman. But nobody : every mentions that, it's when the other person is a female that suddenly some : people have a hard time with it.

It was mentioned quite a bit in the case of Morrison and Millar.

That it isn't anymore so much may have more to do with the fact that Millar has become a popular and critically acclaimed writer on his own now, rather than with the fact that he's male.

Creepiness in Germany: Touch my monkey.